I still get fan mail for Columbo.

When I was a kid, the idea of gettin' paid to paint your face... listen, I grew up in Ossining, New York, a nice little town by the Hudson, and nothin' ever interested me except being your usual high school big shot, which I was an' loved it, played all the sports and goofed around, always out on the street with the guys, everything was funny t'me.

My wife loves to get all dressed up and go out, and I'm this gloomy Virgo. It works because of the mutual recognition that we are two democratic narcissists. She does what she has to do, and I do what I have to do. We respect that.

The whole thing was an actor's dream - getting a character that tickles you so much you can't wait to act as him.

I've been asked a few thousand times how much of Columbo is Falk and vice versa.

Sometimes I was in school plays, but only when the kid they'd originally picked got sick and they asked me to substitute.

Initially, they wanted Columbo to wear a driving coat. I said: 'Are you kidding? He's not an English aristocrat.'

The female body is awesome.

Good actors are always looking for props. They're looking for behavior. It makes it a lot easier. You're not solely dependent of what's coming out of your mouth. You're also less self-conscious, less aware of the camera.

You talk about what a director, he was smart. He said, Turn the camera on!

I've worked with some terrific actors. The list of guys that came on the 'Columbo' show, I mean they were world-class actors from all over the world - Oskar Werner, Laurence Harvey, Donald Pleasence, you know... foreigners.

I used to have this idea that you can spend years in the movies and TV and then, at the drop of a hat, say 'Oh, I'll go back and do the theater.'

I watch practically no TV - ah, what the hell do I watch? Oh, I was for a long time addicted to CNN.

I don't like getting up in the morning, getting in a car, driving on a freeway, and stopping at a gate where two guards are standing there, then walk into a studio that looks like a bunch of airplane hangars.

You thought the stage, you thought Broadway: that was the pot at the end of the rainbow. The idea of being in Hollywood was like going to the Moon or Mars.

I was a street-guy villain. I was a street-corner villain. I was an illiterate villain. All rough edges.

There were no artists in Ossining, which was the home of Sing Sing prison. Most of the parents of the guys I knew were guards there.

Usually, I get hired because I'm tall.

I'm old fashioned. I really think you should know how to draw before you start painting. I use charcoal and graphite; I put a skylight in. In my house, I turned the garage into an art studio. So I'm awash in art studios.

If I'm a guy reading a newspaper, and I hear this actor who I know gets great seats at basketball games, and he's complaining about being typecast, I think, 'Hey man, count your blessings.'

I did do my own stunts.

If it wasn't for the Mark Twain Masquers, I don't know where my life would have gone.

I don't dwell on it. But I guess everybody hopes that they go in their sleep and that it won't be long and painful.

In the theater, you didn't have any marks. Your instincts in rehearsal told you what the blocking was. On film, they reversed it. They decided ahead of time what your instincts were, before you even arrived.

I do figure every angle of a guy I'm acting - but not consciously 'til afterward.

I think people identify with Columbo because he is an average man.

It depends how lenient you are with your definition of artist. If you're going to include those who tap dance at the high school recital, then maybe I am.

I didn't become an actor until I was an old man of 28 or 29. I declared to the world that I was an actor. Nobody heard me, but I did declare it.

Your instincts for what's dramatic are the same whether you're working on a drawing or on a script.

I remember being amazed that actors had a union. I thought only coal miners had unions, or guys that worked in automobile plants. That's an indication of how naive I was.

The first time I ever spoke to John Cassavetes was at a Lakers game. I got up to go for a hot dog, and he was coming in the opposite direction. I don't know who said hello first, but we started talking, and it turned out that he went to high school with my first wife, Alice.

I'm just looking to get through the day.

I came to Hollywood and nobody knew me. I was on a coupla TV shows.

I never understood a word John Cassavetes said. And I think he did that deliberately.

If your mind is at work, we're in danger of reproducing another cliche. If we can keep our minds out of it and our thoughts out of it, maybe we'll come up with something original.

Columbo was never comfortable if somebody considered him unique or smart.

In 1958, I was shooting a movie in Florida, and I decided to go to Havana, Cuba, to see what it was like.

Even the first year of 'Columbo,' 'Columbo' was Jesus Christ, No. 1, you know.

When I was a kid growing up, you maybe secretly wanted to be an actor, but you never said.

When I was young, I was looking for people to look up to - role models I could respect.

To be totally sincere, I'd surely be a better actor today if I hadn't played Columbo all these years.

Before we ever had a script or anything, I was attracted to the idea of playing a character that housed within himself two opposing traits.

I just keep working.

I got a regret: That I started acting so late. I was 27, and guys who start at 18 or so, there's this kinda continuity of friendships they form in the profession by startin' young, I've never had that.

I had no idea when I graduated from high school and then from graduate school what I wanted to do with my life. I had no idea that I was ever going to be an actor.

Going to Hartford turned out to be the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.

The celebrity craze is a little much. But it's good for me, so you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

I like stories that grow, that have unpredictable layers. As opposed to Hollywood movies that start out with a lot of shock and noise and peter out into an unconvincing cliche.

In the beginning, when you're acting in amateur theater and off-Broadway, it was unheard of that anyone else would get your costume. And it was important to get a good costume. You put time into that.

To be a theater actor, I think you have to do plays all the time.